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A male professor was shot and killed at Mississippi’s Delta State University Monday, according to Bolivar County Deputy Coroner Murray Roark. The victim was in his office at the time of the shooting, Roark said, adding that the shooter remains at laWochit

Shannon Lamb, as pictures on the Delta State University website.(Photo: Delta State University)

A law enforcement officer stands watch as emergency vehicles clog a road adjacent to Delta State University after an active shooter was reported in Cleveland, Miss., Monday, Sept. 14, 2015. (Photo: Courtney Warren, AP)

Tragedy struck a Mississippi university poised to celebrate its 90th anniversary when a history teacher was fatally shot in his office, authorities said Monday. Police were looking for another school employee in the shooting.

Delta State University was placed on lockdown Monday amid reports of an active shooter on the Cleveland campus. The campus remained on lockdown Monday evening, but the university tweeted that students should report to the dining hall between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. to reenter residence halls.

Authorities identified the victim as Ethan Schmidt, an assistant history professor. State, city and Delta State police, along with the Bolivar County Sheriff’s Department, were on on campus and looking for his killer, the school said.

Cleveland, Miss., Police Chief Charles “Buster” Bingham told reporters Monday that authorities had identified Shannon Lamb as a “person of interest” in the shooting. Bingham said police had information suggesting Lamb may have been involved in another slaying in the south Mississippi city of Gautier, about 300 miles away.

The university tweeted late Monday afternoon that the person of interest in the shooting may be driving a black Dodge Avenger with Stone County, Miss., tag STF015.

Gautier police spokesman Matthew Hoggatt told The Sun Herald newspaper that a woman was found dead in her home in Gautier, and that Lamb was the suspect in her death.

“We’re working right now under the assumption that both events are related,” Hoggatt said. “We hope that they are not. But at this point in time, information indicates that they probably are linked in some way, shape or form.”

University spokeswoman Jennifer Farish said the Delta State lockdown began shortly before 11 a.m. CT Monday and that students, faculty and staff were advised to take shelter. Students were being evacuated from the school building by building, and Monday classes were canceled.

The Bolivar County Coroner’s office said Schmidt was shot in his Jobe Hall office. The school said emergency management officials had set up a command center on campus.

“Fortunately for us, our public safety officers and university officials have trained many of us for active shooter situations,” Don Allan Mitchell, an English professor, told the Associated Press. “Many students are locked-down in classrooms, and professors and staff members are telling them the protocol. Plus, we are all texting and Facebooking each other to make sure we are safe.”

Gov. Phil Bryant has reached out to university officials, spokeswoman Nicole Webb said.

“Governor Bryant is in communication with President LaForge and with Department of Public Safety Commissioner Albert Santa Cruz,” Webb said. “The governor has offered the full support and assistance of DPS, including the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation and the Mississippi Highway Patrol.”

Caleb Smith was on his way to get breakfast when he got the alert.

“I was just walking toward the building when I got the message, so I turned around and went back to my room,” he said. “I have no idea where the shooter could have been.”

Schmidt wrote for an American Historical Association profile that he grew up in a family that valued history, his father a collector of Civil War and 19th century Kansas memorabilia and both parents involved in historic preservation. Most recently, according to his profile, he working on two projects involving the Native American experience.

“I value the fact that inquiry for the sake of inquiry is honored in the profession,” he wrote. “We never accept the conventional wisdom or current paradigm as an acceptable answer.”

Cleveland is 121 miles north of Jackson. Delta State is a public university with more than 4,000 students on campus.

The school had planned a daylong celebration marking Delta State’s 90th anniversary.